This movie is a sequel of Black God, White Devil ( Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol). The famous bearded cangaceiro killer Antonio das Mortes is now hired by an associate of a powerful landlord (the blind Colonel Horácio) to put an end of a rebellion of peasants and to kill their leader Coirana, who dresses as a cangaceiro and claims he has taken the role of the cangaceiro leader Lampião (who has been recently killed by the Brazilian police forces). Antonio kills Coirana in a colourful fight with machetes, but afterward he has a change in heart and sides with the peasants once he knows who is the real enemy in the dispute. This comes after the peasant's cult leader (the "Santa") tells Antonio that her family became cangaceiros out of necessity, but all of them were killed int he past by orders of Colonel Horácio. Antonio was possibly one of the killers, and he asks the Santa for her forgiveness, but she says Antonio has to walk to paths of fire while in earth asking forgiveness for his numoerus killings of the past. She also says that, if Coirana dies, all of the peasants will die. The colonel entrusts a killer named Mata Vaca (translated into English that means "cow-killer") and his group of thugs, and entrusts them to kill the peasants. Meanwhile Coirana dies and Antonio, feeling he has killed an innocent man, tells the Santa he will drag his corpse towards the sertao (the desert) to give him proper burial. While Antonio drags Coirana's corpse, Mata Vaca massacres a large number of peasants, but then he ends confronting Antonio and the village's tacher in the last 5 minutes of the movie, where the action is really Western-like.

The movie is in colour and the music is excellent. Same as in Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol, the music in the movie is mostly a sung ballad telling the story of Antonio das Mortes. The version I have is in Portuguese with Spanish subs, and I am not sure if an English version is available. Still, if you liked O' Cangaceiro and/or Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol, I am confident you will also like Antonio das Mortes.

There is a restored version with subtitles in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. You can find information about it by typing in Google "O Dragão da Maldade contra o Santo Guerreiro " and restored.

Watched it, finally. It is not that much different in approach from the first one except maybe for the fact that it's in color. On a more subtle level: it is more focused on the psychology of the characters and the criticism of the economic situation, rather than religious symbolism (like the first one). It is definitely more fluid and easier to follow, and less abstract (though there's still x times more of it than in the average Western).

7.8/10

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